The EU is neglecting human rights in favour of securing trade deals or co-operation on anti-terror measures, a human rights group has said. In its annual report, Human Rights Watch said the UK in particular was ignoring abuses in Russia and Saudi Arabia to secure business contracts. And it accused the US of having a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogation. White House reassurances that it does not torture are deceptive, it said. President George W Bush "continues to offer deceptive reassurances that the United States does not 'torture' suspects, but that reassurance rang hollow", the report said. The country's resulting lack of credibility on human rights issues left "a global leadership void when it came to defending human rights". The 544-page annual report said 2005 was marked by a "continuing tendency to subordinate human rights to various economic and political interests". ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

Outgoing President Eduardo Rodriguez fired Bolivia’s army chief on Tuesday over his decision to have 28 Chinese shoulder-launched missiles destroyed in the United States.Gen. Marcelo Antezana later appeared on Bolivian television to say Rodriguez had made a “bad interpretation” of his role in the October destruction of the missiles, which led to accusations of treason by Evo Morales, then a presidential candidate.Morales — who later won elections in December — revealed the destruction of the missiles by the United States and said it had left Bolivia with almost no air defense....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10774121/from/RSS/

First lady Laura Bush announced Wednesday that Nigeria will receive $163 million in U.S. assistance to fight AIDS as she heard a young woman at a small AIDS clinic tell how medications helped her avoid death from the disease.Mrs. Bush, standing next to four cartons of anti-retroviral drugs, visited with health workers and AIDS patients at St. Mary’s Hospital on the dusty outskirts of the capital. The four boxes — enough to treat 500 people — is the first U.S.-backed shipment of the drugs St. Mary’s has received through President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.Mrs. Bush sat under shade tree to hear the stories of clinic workers and patients, including Toyin Yomi, 26, whose frail body was clad in a colorful navy dress and shawl. She tested positive for HIV in 1999 and started her first round of drug treatment in 2003....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10891034/from/RSS/

Thousands of British troops will be exposed to fresh dangers, including a growing threat from suicide bombers, when they are deployed in southern Afghanistan over the coming months, Ministry of Defence officials said yesterday. The admissions came in evidence to the Commons defence committee as MPs expressed serious doubts about the deployment, which, they said, could be bedevilled by conflicts over rules of engagement and rows between the US and its European allies over tactics. The MPs were also angry that the MoD failed to give an assurance that detainees captured by British forces in Afghanistan would not end up in Guantánamo Bay or taken to secret interrogation centres. In what is seen as a big test of Nato's credibility, Britain is preparing to take over the leadership of Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force, Isaf. A British general, Sir David Richards, will command the force based in Kabul and about 3,000 British troops will be deployed in Helmand province ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1688750,00.html

A Russian-made surface-to-air missile launched by anti-American insurgents brought down a US military helicopter that crashed in Iraq on Monday, US television reported, citing unnamed Pentagon officials. The ABC News network said the shootdown represented "a troubling new development" because there are hundreds and possibly thousands of SA-7 missiles that remain unaccounted for in Iraq. The AH-64 Apache went down north of Baghdad, killing its two crew members and becoming the third US helicopter to be shot down in 10 days. According to the report, the weapons had been part of Saddam Hussein's arsenal, much of which was looted after the invasion. But until now, insurgents had never successfully used them against an American aircraft. "It could be just a lucky shot," General John Keane, the Army's acting chief of staff. "Or it could be that they have invested in a training program and they now have some qualified operators and that'll be more of a threat than it has been in the past."...http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060118/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary_060118004346

American helicopters in Iraq are facing a new threat from so-called aerial bombs, which are fired into the air from the ground and explode close to passing aircraft.The new home-made weapons, known to the Americans as "aerial improvised explosive devices" have been used on numerous occasions. "The enemy is adaptive. They makes changes in the way they fight, they respond to new flying tactics," Brig Edward Sinclair, a US army aviation commander, told Defense News, which first revealed the new threat.He refused to say whether they had brought aircraft down. The aerial devices are placed along known flight paths and are triggered when insurgents see a low-flying helicopter approaching....http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/18/wirq18.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/01/18/ixportal.html